Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams - Rise of the Owlverlord is a blistering platformer with morphing worlds, featuring seven brand new levels, a new boss and new gripping tracks from Chris Hülsbeck and Machinae Supremacy! Dash through tricky levels and transform the whole world at will in this fast-paced platformer.

27 de fevereiro

It’s not exactly a secret that we are also currently working on Giana Sisters 2. Being in the very early development stage that means a lot of concept art of different visual directions is going around. Below you can find a selection of the recent Giana concepts.

Análises

“Rise of the Owlverlord is an excellent platformer. It’s fun to play, the controls are tight, and the level design is great.”
9.5 / Editor's Choice – Zero Tolerance Game Domain

“Rise of the Owlverlord demonstrates that the studio has a knack for creating enjoyable, challenging platforming games.”
8.0 – DarkZero

Sobre este jogo

Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams - Rise of the Owlverlord is a blistering platformer with morphing worlds, featuring seven brand new levels, a new boss and new gripping tracks from Chris Hülsbeck and Machinae Supremacy!

Dash through tricky levels and transform the whole world at will in this fast-paced platformer. Rise of the Owlverlord combines graphics that pack a visual punch and tight controls with the challenge of retro era platforming. Fluidly morph between two dynamically different dream worlds to solve puzzles and combat grueling enemies and bosses. You’ll have to intertwine perky Giana's twirling jump with punky Giana's hammering dash attack to survive her dual nightmare.

Key Features

Powerful Abilities: Change Giana's personality to unleash her unique abilities - you'll need to control both sides to survive her dreams!

Two funny-looking sisters who're always eager for new adventures have found themselves in another devious trap. Dinosaur mastermind from original game who earned his fame not only for being a final boss but also for annihilating millions of nerve cells by posing a formiddable threat during the final showdown. Yes, he was extremely difficult to take down. So, he stepped from his throne and a big bad owl has taken it in this new chapter. Well, doesn't matter though, the game has no plot whatsoever...

In order to sum it all up, a phrase "good, but too short" would fit just perfectly. 7 levels won't take you longer but one evening to complete them. Well, unless you are a perfectionist hero who wants to earn the best rating and complete the levels all over again in challenging modes. In this case, multiply your gaming time by 3.

There's not that much of a difference between this addon and original game. Two, maybe three new enemies, redrawn backgrounds and a couple of new musical themes. New backgrounds look especialy distinctive in contrast to original ones, which seemed rather dull and lackluster.

No plot and a lack of new content don't hurt that much due to tremendous level design, heavy soundtrack from scandinavian band Machine Supremacy and high unforgiving difficulty. I think it's enough for a short addon for a decent platformer.

While the core of the game has the Kaizo ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ removed which ruined the first game, the final boss fight is just awful due to its wonky hitbox. The devs keep getting so close to making a great platformer and then just utterly ♥♥♥♥ the bed at the last second every time.

I am not a big fan of platformer games in general, but I found this game quite fun! It has good difficulty, smooth controls and gameplay (reminded me a lot of the adventure mode, Subspace Emissary, in Super Smash Bros. Brawl), and plenty of gorgeous levels to keep you busy. Not to mention an awesome soundtrack! Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams - Rise of the Owlverlord is a very solid game and is worth every penny in my honest opinion.

After completing literally everything this game has to offer, Hard difficulty,Hardcore Mode, Über Hardcore Mode, Time Attack, Score Attack and all Achievements I can safely say that this is a really fun platformer.

This is a stand-alone expansion / DLC that adds 7 levels and does not require the base game to be able to play.

I would really recommend starting off on hard difficulty, normal mode just makes the levels so much easier that it's barely a challenge. Completing hard difficulty took me around 3-4 hours the first time playing, so the game is fairly short if you don't give all the other game modes a try (took me around 15~ hours to complete the game 100%)

The controls are solid for this game, I didn't mess up once because of bad controls or anything like that, Giana moved where I wanted her to, worth noting that I used an Xbox 360 controller to play through the game, can't say how the keyboard controls are as I didn't try them.

Now the soundtrack for this game, and the base game is fantastic. The Cute / Punk version of every song blends together perfectly when you switch between the two different versions of Giana.

This is NOT an easy game, you're gonna have to restart over and over again, be prepared.

Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams is without a doubt one of the best things to come out of the great retro platformer deluge, which began somewhere around the release of Super Meat Boy. It was stunning to look at, a joy to play, and managed to feel fresh yet familiar at the same time. As with any good thing fans are bound to want more, and Black Forest Games has now delivered just that with Rise of the Owlverlord; a standalone expansion that in many ways is even better than the game which spawned it!

If you've played Twisted Dreams (and you definitely should have before jumping into Owlverlord), you should know what you're getting into here; a tightly knit platformer with a neat world shifting mechanic, that controls like a charm and features an outstanding soundtrack. Owlverlord doesn't mess with this formula at all, but reworks it into a smaller more focused experience that fixes nearly all of my complaints of the original and then some.

While I enjoyed Twisted Dreams a lot, variety was not its strong suit and I quickly found myself fatigued of it after only a few level, forcing me to space it out of many short sessions to keep it from completely wearing out its welcome. I never felt this with Owlverlord. While there are far fewer levels this time (7, if you include the boss fight at the end), the upside of this is that each is longer and more uniquely designed than those found in the original game, with some of, if not the best level designs the series has seen to date! It took me weeks to finish the original game, but I tore through Owlverlord like a starving dog who just found a box of bacon, and was left eager for more (despite previously thinking I had had more than my fill of the series after the first game).

If you enjoyed Twisted Dreams there is absolutely no reason you should hesitate to pick up Rise of the Owlverlord! It's a shorter game, but a better one in every regard (which is saying something as the original was fantastic as well) that heightens the challenge, fine tunes the gameplay, and somehow manages to deliver and even more ridiculously awesome soundtrack than last time (Machinae Supremacy has completely outdone themselves yet again)! If you have yet to play Twisted Dreams you are missing out on one the best modern platformers we have, a fact Owlverlord only further solidifies. Black Forest Games have continued to impress me more than I would have expected from such humble Kickstarter beginnings, and now have me wishfully hoping a true Giana Sisters 2 is on the horizon.

Much like its core game, the Rise of the Owlverlord is fun, creative and difficult. The game forces the player to shift between "cute" and "punk" Giana constantly in order to make progress or survive traps even more than the original game. Traps are always there making the player balance out cleverness and reflexes, and enemies are strategically put most of times to aid reaching a secret area or merely to pose an extra challenge.

Twisting Dreams again

Swapping between cute and punk Giana is a must here and the game will never let you forget about this even once. Swapping can be done between a specific key assigned to it or by using the Fireball Roll (which automatically swaps to punk Giana) or twirling (which swaps to cute Giana). At first it may seem simple, but the game will have creative ways to spice up things as levels goes by.

Running and jumping is very precise as you'd expect (and want) in a platformer, the controls feels great and runs smoothly at all times.

Learning curve: STEEP

Unlike the core game Rise of the Owlverlord holds no punches and throws everything it can as soon you decide to play. Mercifully there is a "Normal" mode which considerably ramps down the difficulty inserting safe places between death traps and removing certain gimmicks that would require split second reaction to bypass.

However as soon you decide to pick "Hard" mode you're in for a rough ride as the game will not hold your hand even for the first second of the first level, but playing at hard difficulty will allow you to earn rank stars and will unlock the finished level for Time Attack and Score Attack mode.

Not enough yet?

For those seeking for more challenge the game still have the Hardcore difficulty (which removes every checkpoint) and the Über Hardcore (which gives you one, single life for the entire game).

Final considerations

Rise of the Owlverlord follows just as well the core game and is more than a "more of the same" expansion, it is a fine platformer with beautiful graphics, amazing controls and brutally difficult if you are not used to platformers.

I'd not say it's a must-buy, but Rise of the Owlverlord is definately a good purchase, if you don't mind difficult games. With plenty of replayability and a great soundtrack, I've found this to be a great addition to my library.

This game picks up where the original left off, and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna fall off every other game to ride this one to the end. 10/10 Probably GotY material and is definately chalk full of solid gameplay you come to expect from AAA titles,

I love this game! The art makes it a wonderful place to spend some time. Add to that the fun twisting-musical score and you are instantly transported into a world that is worth investing some time in. And, do plan on investing some time because make not mistake, this is a challenging game! As a fan of the old-style Sonic games, I was in platformer heaven! The price is extremely reasonable, and that gameplay itself is responsive, logical and, most importantly, fun! I recommended it!